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I mean it feels like the headline from this story is that the tag did one thing it’s meant to do, and failed another, quite important one?
 
I mean it feels like the headline from this story is that the tag did one thing it’s meant to do, and failed another, quite important one?
An airtag will alert if it has been following you around and then you return home with it, not if the airtag is just at your home.
 
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The author of this article isn't American.
Which article, the original, or the MacRumors article? The author of the original article is American. I said "near London" to not have to explain where Kent is. People outside the UK might think it's in Scotland or something.
 
I wonder if his friend had 14.6 on his phone. Isn't that the version required to be able to do things like alert you to an unpaired AirTag nearby?
 
How long will it be before someone uses this type of tracking as evidence in a lawsuit? "You claimed my item was in your shipping facility on Tuesday, but I have the evidence showing it was not there yet."
I can tell you for a fact they already outright lie about this, that make up most of the tracking. I once had a DHL package say it was delivered when it wasn't, I panicked and phoned them up, they said oh no no its not delivered yet, I said but it says its been delivered.

They go "yeah ... its not don't worry it will be tomorrow"

All to meet those stupid KPI's
 


An Apple customer in the United Kingdom has successfully used Apple's Find My network to track an AirTag as it was being sent by mail to a friend in a completely different city.

AirTag-in-Envelope-Feature-2.jpg

Outlined in a blog post at Intego, Kirk McElhearn said he taped an AirTag to a piece of card, wrapped it inside a small bubble envelope, and then sent it on its way. Kirk lives in the small town of Stratford-upon-Avon, and he shipped his AirTag to a friend near London.

Using the Find My app on his iPhone, Kirk says he was able to keep track of his AirTag whereabouts, including its arrival at a shipping facility and a "highly automated mail processing centre." What's worth noting is that Apple uses its Find My network, which crowdsources anonymous data from iPhone and iPad devices, in the area to pinpoint the location of an AirTag.Kirk built a custom script on his Mac which took a screenshot of the Find My app every two minutes as a way to log the movement of his AirTag. The video can be viewed in his blog post for those interested. A few days later, the AirTag successfully arrived at his friend's house near London.

Apple has a series of built-in parameters that are meant to prevent AirTags from being used for unwanted tracking. One of the leading ways Apple aims to prevent unwanted tracking is by alerting a user if an AirTag, unpaired with their iPhone or Apple ID, is found to have been following them for a certain period of time. The specific time period is unknown, but as Kirk finds out, it seems to be a rather long time.

Kirk says he expected his friend's iPhone to alert him that an unknown AirTag had been found on him, but even three days after his friend first received the AirTag, their iPhone failed to alert him to the presence of the unknown item tracker. His friend did however hear an audible alert from the AirTag, which is another method Apple uses to alert users to an unknown device. After the audible alert, it's unlikely that AirTags would send an alert to an iPhone.Lucikly in this case, there was no potential harm in the friend's iPhone failing to alert him to the unknown AirTag. However, in other instances, there could be a danger if the built-in measures for unwanted tracking fail to kick in.

Article Link: AirTag Used to Successfully Track a Mailed Package Across the UK
He’s only going to get the notification of an unknown tracker following him if it actually follows him from location to location. Since its location is static on his table now, it is not following him as he moves from place to place—if he were to carry it with him on his car for example, I expect you/he would get the alert then.
 
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It’s funny how this wasn’t done with Tile. Maybe it Has but because it’s Apple it’s a bigger deal?
 
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I’ve seen other people report their AirTag doesn’t alert a nearby iPhone if it’s lost. I don’t know if these are isolated issues, defective AirTags, a known issue or a common problem that needs fixing by Apple.
Or maybe those ‘other people’ don’t know what they are talking about, have no clue, or are simply wrong and stupid.
 
Interesting how they don't see a need to display a popup that asks "Allow your device to be used by others to track things".

If you opted in to Find My iPhone once upon a time, which everyone does and should, you were opted in to this too.

The hypocrisy is strong.
I don’t see this as the same. No user data is collected. It’s anonymous. No different then GPS.

App Store and News advertising is another story though. I think that should ask you when it launches to be on par with third parties. For News, I wish paid subscribers could also turn off the iAD advertising.
 
Mmmm. So my Android using brother wouldn’t know if I stuck an AirTag in his car to track his movements…
Just kidding of course, but this could be really creepy. Imagine a criminal who spots a nice car in a car park for example…slips an airtag underneath it and finds out where it’s kept overnight.
GPS trackers already allow this though.
 
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Interesting how they don't see a need to display a popup that asks "Allow your device to be used by others to track things".

If you opted in to Find My iPhone once upon a time, which everyone does and should, you were opted in to this too.

The hypocrisy is strong.
Indeed. Is there really no way to disable this?
 
This is great. I could definitely see this being used to track high-dollar items since they're only $29, or $24.75 in the four pack. I mean, I've paid a lot more than that to insure my artwork as it is shipped across the country, so what's an additional $24.75? I bought a four pack of AirTags and I don't think the one I had set aside to put on my DJI Mini 2 is going to work out (I think it puts me over the 250g weight limit and I didn't like any of the places I tried to put it) so I'm thinking about sending it to my friend in Texas just to try this out, haha.

If you send someone an AirTag, can they reset it? Can I reset it remotely?
 
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It’s funny how this wasn’t done with Tile. Maybe it Has but because it’s Apple it’s a bigger deal?
Duh lol. Look at the way everyone on here reacts to ANYTHING Apple related. Then look at social media as well.

It’s a huge deal because it’s Apple. Nothing more.
 
This is cool and all, but has been massively out done. Over on a popular Australian forum (Whirlpool), someone sent an airtag from Australia to the US, providing the forum with daily updates.
 
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